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CD cover Fra l’ombre e gl’orrori

Fra l’ombre e gl’orrori
Nahuel Di Pierro bass, Ensemble Diderot, directed by Johannes Pramsohler
74:02
Audax Records ADX 11210

This CD traces music written for the solo bass voice from the compositions of Monteverdi to Handel. While the obvious stars of the Baroque opera scene were mainly the sopranos and castrati, as the CD notes concede, in selecting the music for this programme cleverly, conductor Johannes Pramsohler and bass Nahuel Di Pierro bring the Baroque bass convincingly out of the shadows. Di Pierro has a beautifully rich voice and sings with technical authority, dramatising the music extremely effectively. As we proceed through history, the instrumental ensemble expands appropriately from the string ensembles needed for Rossi, Monteverdi, Cavalli and Sartorio, acquiring brass, woodwind and percussion supplements for Marc’Antonio Ziani, Antonio Giannettini, Giovanni Bononcini, Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Vivaldi before we get to Handel. While several arias are striking for their flamboyant martial flavours, what emerges is the huge range of moods the Baroque bass singer is asked to represent. He is as often a lover or a lamentable victim as he is a hero, and Di Pierro captures this full kaleidoscope of moods in his marvellously varied vocal tones. The singing of three supplementary vocalists (Nicholas Scott, Guillaume Gutierrez and Nicolas Brooymans) in the ensemble “Amici, è giunta l’hora” from Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea is superlative, and the orchestral playing throughout is beautifully concise and supportive. Incidentally, in addition to directing, Johannes Pramsohler joins Roldán Bernabé in some stunning obbligato violin duetting, particularly in the magnificent aria “Occhi belli”, occhi possenti from Bononcini’s Il ritorno di Giulio Cesare, one of the many highlights of this excellent disc.

D. James Ross

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Recording

J-B Loeillet: Six suits for the harpsichord

CD cover Loeillet Six Suits

Maria Banaszkiewicz-Bryła harpsichord
111:24 (2 CDs)
Prelude Classics PCL2400701

It has to be said that when I put on the first of this two-CD set, I was instantly impressed with the wonderful clarity of the sound. On further reading, I discovered that it is an example of ‘hybrid multichannel super audio’ of which much more detail in the copious programme notes for those interested in this aspect. Details of recording venue and method have been carefully considered by sound engineer and producer Michal Bryła, evidently a team effort! I wanted to make the point that for one not primarily interested in the recording process, the results spoke for themselves. Another important factor in the rich sound is the instrument Maria Banaszkiewicz-Bryła plays, a fine modern copy by Reinhard von Nagel after a Blanchet original of around 1730. It has a wonderfully rich voice and a rewarding range of stops, which the player uses to great effect. Her playing throughout these demanding works is unerringly musical and expressive, and above all, intelligent. Given that Loeillet advertises his Suits as being ‘in most of the keys’, I wanted to know a little more about the tuning of the harpsichord than was provided by the CD notes. Loeillet also highlights ‘the variety of passages (passaggi) and variations’, suggesting that his Suits are a training ground for the would-be improviser – music of any period, which includes written-out ornamentation, is a treasure trove for performers, and indeed this is the case with these Suits. A pleasing blend of the French and Italian styles, they develop in format – the first three contain an Aria along with the traditional Allemande, Corente, Sarabanda, Minuet and Giga, whereas the concluding three replace this with a Gavotte. Recorded in Poland by a Polish musician and a Polish recording team, this package, with its superb international CD notes and superlative sound, is a powerful testimony to the growing importance of Poland as a centre of historically informed performance and recording.

D. James Ross

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Recording

The Secrets of Andalusia

CD cover The secrets of Andalusia Vox Musicae London

Lux Musicae London with Victoria Couper, Konstantinos Glynos and Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde
71:14
First Hand Records FHR157

This attractive mixture of traditional Andalusian and early music from Spain and elsewhere works very well as a programme. Oud, kanun and flamenco guitar rub shoulders with recorders, Baroque harp and guitar, lute, viola da gamba and soprano and tenor voices in a creative interface in which each of these two styles cross paths and influence one another. As with recordings by Jordi Savall and others who endeavour to introduce the spice of their traditional roots into performances of early music, there are revelations but also some slight stretching of the historically informed rules – if you set out to trace the roots of flamenco in early music, you will generally find them! However, there remains a gulf between the flamenco guitars, oud and kanun, generally modern instruments, and the ‘early’ instruments, copies of historical examples, while the kanun and oud are tuned to one scale and the modern guitar and early instruments to another, while of course as part of a living tradition the music for flamenco guitar engages with a thoroughly modern harmonic world. This gap even extends to the singers – soprano Victoria Couper using a thrilling flamenco-type voice production and Roberta Diamond and Daniel Thomson generally using a more orthodox style of singing, although these versatile singers are also able to move in a more traditional direction when necessary. If you accept this CD as a dynamic amalgam of traditional and historically informed approaches, it makes for a joyful listen, and in their work with their traditional music guests, Lux Musicae London have undoubtedly found sympathetic echoes in the early material they perform.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Artemisia

CD cover Artemisia Ensemble Agamemnon

Ensemble Agamemnon, François Cardey
60:27
Seulétoile SE14

Musicians are often tempted to use visual artists as hooks from which to hang musical programmes, and the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi are more tempting than most. In addition to her being one of the most accomplished female painters of her day, painting in the vivid style of Caravaggio, she lived from 1593 to after 1654, a golden age also for Italian music. Choosing three of her depictions of the Madonna as well as one of the martyr Susanna (all helpfully illustrated in the CD booklet), thereby giving access to the vogue for writing variations on Lassus’ chanson Susan, un jour, Ensemble Agamemnon under their cornett-playing director François Cardey present music by the familiar Salamone Rossi, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Francesca Caccini and Alessandro Grandi and the less familiar Giovanni Battista Fontana, Lucretia Orsina Vizana, Orazio Tarditi, Ippolito Tattaglino and Domenico Mazzocchi. Cardey’s facility on the cornett is impressive, while his creative interaction with Amandine Trenc in several numbers is also enjoyable. Combine this with the considerable violinistic skills of Anaëlle Blanc-Verdin and a first-class continuo group of bass viol, lirone, triple harp, and harpsichord/organ, and the results are wonderfully persuasive and entertaining.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Les Violons et les Valois

CD cover Les Violons et les Valois

Emergence et rayonnement des violons au temps de Michel-Ange
Ensemble Les Sonadori
65:00
Exordium EX20250005

This CD takes us back to the emergence of the violin in the period from the late 15th century to the mid 16th century in a milieu shaped by the Valois Dukes of Burgundy. Various sizes of early violin blend with earlier stringed instruments such as the rebec, hurdy-gurdy as well as the lute and Renaissance guitar to produce a startlingly new sound which already points in the direction of the early Baroque. I can remember the startling effect when a number of viol consorts replaced their treble viols with early violins, and this lovely, bright sound recalls that moment. Playing consort music by Attaignant, Milano, Susato, Moderne, Obrecht, Ghiselin and Vicenzo Capirola as well as instrumental accounts of chansons by de la Rue, Johannes Stokhem, Crequillon, Tinctoris, Ghizeghem and Clemens, and sacred music by Festa, Morales and others, the consort vividly evoke the courts of Charles the Bold and Charles V. The slightly vague date of the ‘birth of the violin’ is shrouded to an extend in terminology – the first mention of ‘vyollons’ is as late as 1523 in Savoy (interestingly the original home of ‘Davie the fiddler’, David Rizzio) but illustrations show that instruments which were essentially violins had existed before that, while proto and neo violins continued to crop up throughout the transition period from viols to violins proper. What is striking about this recording is the distinctive and attractive sound produced by an ensemble of these early members of the violin family and how appropriate they sound in this early repertoire. Les Sonadari play with an appropriate complete lack of vibrato and a direct sound, with a clean attack and a very pure sense of ensemble.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Pierre Gaultier de Marseille: Symphonies divisées par suites de ton

CD cover Pierre Gaultier de Marseille Symphonies divisées par suites de ton

Cohaere Ensemble
Ambronay AMY 317
69:27

Few composers fell victim more comprehensively to the hazards of a musical career than the late-17th-century composer Pierre Gaultier de Marseille, whose attempts to put his native city on the international musical map led to penury, imprisonment, and ultimately death by drowning as he attempted to escape his creditors. He composed operas in the style of Lully, which although successful when presented in the opera house he had built in Marseille, left him penniless. These Symphonies, beautifully played by the Polish Cohaere Ensemble on Baroque flutes, violin, cello and harpsichord/organ, are tuneful and elegant but also display an inventiveness which set them apart from the standard repertoire of the second half of the 17th century in France. Many of them bear ‘character’ titles, including a set marking his melancholy stay in debtors’ prison. Whether this individual style is due to regional difference or simply Gaultier’s inspired imagination is not clear, but the Cohaere Ensemble recognised something special in his music several years ago and have been championing his work ever since. Such technically accomplished and musically authoritative accounts can only help belatedly to establish the reputation of a composer who clearly deserves more attention.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Boismortier: 6 Sonatas for 2 Pardessus de viole, Op. 63

CD cover Boismortier 6 Sonatas for 2 Pardessus de viole, Op. 63

Dialogue Viols (Peter Wendland, Jacqui Robertson-Wade)
71:23
First Hand Records FHR159

The pardessus de viole, a viol smaller and pitched a fourth higher than the treble viol, enjoyed something of a vogue in France in the first half of the 18th century, and amongst its champions was the prolific French composer Bodin de Boismortier, who wrote much repertoire for the instrument as well as later in life a tutor for it. The present set of six sonatas for a pair of pardessus de viole was considered lost until rediscovered a few years ago, and it is receiving its premiere recording here. The combination of two instruments at the same pitch poses challenges for a composer, as does the relatively high pitch of these viols. The resulting music often relies upon close dialogue over the same material at the same pitch, with the concomitant threat of predictability and, dare one say, ennui. Boismortier’s endless inventiveness and the expressive playing of Peter Wendland and Jacqui Robertson-Wade (Dialogue Viols) avoid this very successfully, and I found myself comprehensively drawn into the reduced world of this diminutive instrument. Such was the persuasiveness of their accounts of Boismortier’s op 63 duos that their arrangements for pardessus of duets by Marais and Couperin sounded entirely natural. The CD notes point out that while the pardessus is mentioned as an optional instrumentation in over 250 pieces in the 18th century, music written specifically for a matched pair of pardessus is vanishingly rare. This makes these charming sonatas by Boismortier a rare and valuable find.

D. James Ross

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Recording

‘A fancy hattar’

CD cover ‘A fancy hattar’ Roman assaggi

Johan Hemlich Roman: Assaggi a violon solo
Anaëlle Blanc-Verdin
73:27
seulétoile SE 13

Well, it turns out a ‘hattar’ is a nickname for those 18th-century Swedes in favour of an alliance with Louis XV’s France, while a ‘fancy’ one tended to put his international perspective into practice by travelling. But while the 18th-century composer Roman Helmich Roman qualified as a ‘fancy hattar’, travelling throughout Europe sampling musical styles and collecting actual music, the main influence on his own compositions was the émigré Hanoverian and adoptive Englishman G F Handel. Most famous perhaps for his orchestral suite Drottningholm Music composed for the 1744 wedding of Crown Prince Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, Roman composed in a wide range of genres, including choral church music. These delightful Assaggi for solo violin (literally ‘tastes’) suggest a composer of extensive musical imagination, but with a light, witty and spontaneous side. Himself an oboist and violinist, it seems likely that these fresh and vivid pieces reflect Roman’s famous ability to improvise, and may amount to written-down versions of music he may have made up virtually on the spot. Regarded by many as the founder of Swedish music, after his death in 1758, his reputation lived on in his native land, although he has remained relatively unknown elsewhere. These beautifully tasteful and eloquent accounts of his Assaggi, described in the programme notes as a ‘dialogue between the violinist and the philosopher’, by Anaëlle Blanc-Verdin, are constantly involving and entertaining – clearly this ‘fancy hattar’ had more under his hat than is at first apparent! The comprehensive French programme notes are available in English translation online.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Sieur Demachy: Pieces de Violle

CD cover Sieur Demachy Pieces de Violle Flore Seube

Flore Seube
119:55 (2CDs in a card triptych)
Les Belles Ecouteuses LBE 82

This complete account by Flore Seube of the surviving viol music of Sieur Demachy, eight suites in all on two CDs, is a world premiere of this evocative repertoire from the reign of Louis XIV. Demachy, a contemporary of Sainte-Colombe and Marais, has left us only this single collection of music, although its authoritative voice and unerring creativity suggest that much else has been lost. Ms Seube plays a wonderfully resonant seven-string bass viol by Pierre Jacquier in the generous acoustic of the Gîte de Lavaud Blanche, which enhances the instrument’s rich timbres without any loss of clarity. She treads a fine line between affectation and expression to produce eloquent readings of this rich repertoire. Each Suite comprises exactly seven movements, generally following the standard form of Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Gavotte and Minuet, with one Suite only replacing the final Minuet with a quirky Chaconne. Sieur Demachy is at his most imaginative in the slightly freer Preludes, and Flore Seube adopts a suitably more exploratory approach in these, following the composer’s imaginative musical journey. However, this is consistently engaging repertoire deserving of wider attention, and Flore Seube has done both Sieur Demachy and her listeners a valuable service in providing these fine performances. A translation of the French programme notes printed in the booklet is available on the Belles Ecouteuses website.

D. James Ross

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Recording

The Edward Lewis Viol of 1703

CD cover The Edward Lewis Viol of 1703

Henrik Persson
72:44
Barn Cottage Records BCR 028

This venerable bass viol by the London maker Edward Lewis, which has been through a number of manifestations since it was built, including a spell as a cello, has been restored in 2020 to its original form. The remarkable survival of an original label dates it to 1703, while its elegant decorations undoubtedly ensured the survival of the instrument itself. Violist Henrik Persson has selected a programme of music which could plausibly have been played on the viol, including a couple of the now familiar Telemann Fantasias, music by that flamoboyant violist/composer Tobias Hume and less familiar repertoire by Benjamin Hely, Thomas Brown and Richard Sumarte as well as anonymous music from the Williamsburg Musick Song Book, attesting to the fact that some of the early American colonists from England brought music and their beloved viols with them. While Henrik Persson plays with complete technical assurance and a wonderful musical expressiveness, the star of the show has to be the Lewis viol, which, in its restored state, has an absolutely beautiful, rich voice and a freshness which it must have had when it was first made. Clearly, from its lavish adornment and its stunning sound, this was a prestige instrument, but just think how many such fine instruments fell victim to changing tastes and musical demands. It is a testimony to the art of restorer John Topham that this remarkable instrument was saved from adaptation and dilapidation, and to the art of Henrik Persson that it has been allowed so eloquently to play the sort of repertoire so perfectly suited to it.

D. James Ross